A Whelp Become
by Morninglight
Summary: Lia comes to Jorrvaskr. Some are less impressed than others.


Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Trigger warning for fantastic racism and violence. Slight change to the opening scene when you enter Jorrvaskr for the first time and massive change on how one learns the Circle are werewolves; my justification is that Lia is a very well-educated woman, especially in occul knowledge, because of her magical training.

…

"The Companions just don't accept any pig-blood who wanders in here!"

They did, however, accept Nord women whose noses broke with a satisfying crunch after being punched in the face. After the bloody hindering awkward settling of her bounty that left her with a fan in Ralof's huscarl Lydia, a few less bandits on the plains of Whiterun, and Balgruuf eyeing her speculatively, Lia was in no mood to take a pureblood's shit. The woman, who bore a strong resemblance to the folk with grey-white hair who wandered about town proclaiming the greatness of Ulfric Stormcloak, staggered back but didn't fall. Lia's hand was displeased at hitting a face that felt like a brick wall even if the nose was broken just as the Companion lunged at the Alik'r.

It was a simple matter to sway out of the charge's path like a willow in the wind. Much to Lia's annoyance, the Nord didn't hit the wall or trip over the steps leading to an alcove off the main hall but instead skidded to a halt, thick leather boots scraping against ancient grey flagstone, and spun with an agility all out of keeping with her buxom, broad-shouldered size.

"A Norc would have met that charge with a blow to the stomach," an older Nord man, one-eyed and balding with a still-thick queue fastened at the nape of his neck, observed to an athletic redhead with green slashes painted across her face. "That move she demonstrated was a Blades form."

"She's smart," the woman answered. "Njada's built like a barn and quick with it. Getting out of the way…"

Lia would have liked to listen to the experienced warriors' critique of her skills – the one-eyed man had a good eye to recognise a Blades form – but Njada was closing in with her, a wary expression on her sturdy face.

"Couldn't take a warrior's blow?" she sneered. "Even pig-bloods have more guts than that, usually."

"I am a Maiden of the Spirit Sword, pureblood. If I had drawn a blade, you would be dead." Lia allowed herself a nasty smile. "Be glad that an Alik'r doesn't unsheathe her blade for one not worthy to die by it."

"This is going to be nasty," the redhead muttered as Njada's face reddened in rage.

Then her fist connected with Lia's stomach, launching her across the room onto a table piled high with platters of meat. To say that Lia's body was unimpressed was an understatement – she wanted to breathe very badly but her stomach wouldn't let her. Swearing mentally and cursing her temper, she activated the Red Surge, gift of the gods to the Ra Gada, and rolled out of the way as Njada tried to punch her again.

If this had been anywhere else, she would have flung pepper or dust in Njada's eyes, closed in while shaking a hidden knife from her sleeve and buried it in her thigh to cripple her. But this was Jorrvaskr and she couldn't rely on such pragmatic tricks to carry the day in a fight that she started.

Instead she shoulder-charged Njada and drove her to the stone floor. There it turned into a grappling contest – the pureblood was built like a stone wall and while faster than Lia, she lacked the Norc's flexibility and training. The Alik'r were trained in all ways of combat, with and without weapons.

It ended with Njada trapped with Lia's arms wrapped under her arms and around her neck, though her hardened leather boots stomped on one foot bad enough to make the Norc hiss in pain. But when the Red Surge was going, so was the adrenaline, and she was able to ignore it to keep her hold on the Companion.

"My name is Lia bint Rustem al-Aurelii. Maiden of the Spirit Sword, Thrice-Folded of the Alik'r. Daughter of the last Shieldmaiden of Talos and the granddaughter of the last Grand Master of the Blades. You will _not_ address me as 'pig-blood', Companion."

Njada used the Battle-Cry, startling Lia into letting her go. She'd never been on the receiving end of it and to feel the bowel-loosening fear that she had on seeing Alduin… No wonder the Nords had received the Thu'um from Kynareth with such Voices!

"Alright, whelps, that's enough." The balding one-eyed warrior, wearing the same wolf-emblazoned steel plate as Farkas and Vilkas had, stepped between them. "Njada, any who seek the Companions with a desire for honour and glory are to be treated with respect, even if refused by Kodlak. I don't give a fuck if it's Alduin Himself – until we throw them out of the hall, they are potential Shield-Siblings."

Njada flushed with shame. "Skjor, I-"

"_Don't._ I know your uncle died in that feud with Half-Moon Hold. Your father was executed by the Thalmor for worshipping Talos but I don't see you treating Celende with disrespect."

"Celende is a member of the Circle," Njada mumbled, acting like a child rightfully chastised.

Skjor turned to Lia, his gimlet eye almost as penetrating as Balgruuf's gaze. "You had every right to the first blow, Lia bint Rustem, but implying that Njada was unworthy to die by an Alik'r blade was as insulting as her calling you a pig-blood. She is a whelp and shieldmaiden while you, for all your… ancestry and training… are nothing but a _would-be_ whelp. Is that clear?"

Lia found her face burning as Njada's did. "As Stros M'kai crystal, sir."

The senior Companion nodded with a slight frown. "This isn't the Legion, so no sirs here. Kodlak's downstairs if you wish to talk to him."

He returned to the redhead, who was eyeing Lia thoughtfully. "Celende will want to speak to you when she returns from Dawnstar with Torvar and Ria," she said quietly.

Lia nodded in acknowledgement. She would most certainly want to speak to an Altmer cousin believed dead for thirty years herself.

The woman – clad in armour that seemed mostly strategically placed bits of leather and metal – inclined her head and turned her attention back to Skjor. Lia took the hint and limped towards the stairs, Njada at her back.

"How does a Norc become an Alik'r?" she asked with typical Nord bluntness once they were in the underground quarters of Jorrvaskr.

"Get rescued from the Great Chapel of Talos as it burned with Thalmor witch-fire by her Ra Gada uncle and taken to Hammerfell," Lia admitted.

"Huh." Njada shut the double-door and limped towards the doorway straight across from them. "Kodlak's down the hall in his study."

Lia limped down past the two corridors that were, judging by their proximity to the study, likely the home of the Circle and came close enough to overhear a ragged-looking Vilkas discussing something with a calm, tired-voiced old man. All she picked up was 'the blood' and 'burden to bear'. Feeling awkward, she cleared her throat loudly as she approached the open doors, earning looks from the two men seated at the table in the study.

"A stranger comes to our hall," noted the scar-faced warrior who had to be Kodlak serenely. He had to be the Harbinger, leader of the heirs of Ysgramor.

"Not a stranger. She is… known… to Farkas and me," Vilkas admitted slowly. "She was that Alik'r who took Saa- Iman al-Suda and incurred a heavy bounty."

"The one you and Farkas collected." Kodlak's still-sharp eyes studied her thoughtfully. "The one who fought Njada to a standstill over an insult."

Lia's lips pulled back in a grimace. "I shouldn't have told her she wasn't worthy of dying by my blade. But calling me 'pig-blood' is shit I won't tolerate."

"Indeed. But being a Companion means family and honour." Kodlak's gaze was wise and despite the six inches of extra height and more hair than a silkwool goat, Lia felt like she was in the presence of her uncle again. Irkand had the same mild censuring gaze, the same air of quiet authority.

Vilkas grunted. "Master, I know what Farkas suggested and you have Seen, but-"

"You have the Sight of things to come?" Lia asked intently, eyes narrowed.

Kodlak met her gaze. "The Harbinger of the Companions has a certain amount of prescience that manifests as dreams. Mostly of danger to the heirs of Ysgramor or to Skyrim."

"You have dreamed of me." Lia didn't even bother making it a question.

"I have."

"I was supposed to make sure the Prophecy of Alduin was… delayed… by helping Ulfric achieve victory. It's in the best interests of the Alik'r to have a Skyrim free of the Empire as allies against the Thalmor." Lia folded her arms, feeling the need to justify her actions to this arbiter of honour who could make or break her reputation in Skyrim. "Capturing Iman was another Alik'r's job; _I _got involved because someone had to before the entire band was caught and executed. It was meant to be quick and clean."

"Your friends are hiding in Swindler's Den, protected by bandits," Kodlak observed, tone deliberately neutral. "In Skyrim, a person is judged by the company they keep."

"That explains why Ulfric's an arsehole then," Lia muttered under her breath in Ra Gada.

"You dislike the Jarl of Windhelm yet you support him?" Kodlak asked mildly in the same language.

"I don't have to like the man to see him on his throne," Lia answered curtly. "If Balgruuf was willing to take the right side, I'd help _him_. The Empire pissed on both Hammerfell and Skyrim-"

"We know," Kodlak interrupted flatly. "But what I want to know, Lia bint Rustem, if these are your words – or those of Irkand Aurelius? And are you following orders to join the Companions or is it your own honour that guides you here?"

"Irkand ibn Farrah al-Aurelii," she corrected calmly.

"He may change his name but he is, from the sounds of it, still the same ruthless Blade who uses others as tools." Kodlak's smile was oddly melancholic. "At least he never asks for anything from anyone he wouldn't give himself."

"I _do_ know that Tullius was going to execute me simply because I was caught in the area of the _carnificina_," Lia responded flatly. "Thalmor agents tried to kill me three times before my tenth birthday, simply because of who my parents were. For Hammerfell, Harbinger, the Great War never ended."

Kodlak sighed, looking away. "I know, Lia. But a Companion has no master but themselves. We fight for honour – ours, a Shield-Sibling's, someone who can't defend themselves through no fault of their own. One person beaten today, reminded of the honour-debt they owe, can stop a clan feud tomorrow. I can advise on matters on honour, but I cannot command."

"You work for coin," Lia pointed out.

It was Vilkas who spoke, quicksilver eyes glittering. "We need to eat, just like everyone else. But unlike the Fighters' Guild, we can and do refuse jobs, even up to the Jarls themselves."

There was a shape here, like the form of something great looming up through the fog-filled darkness, something Lia knew she should understand instinctively. "I sought out the Companions on my own cognizance," she finally answered. "But it is part of the greater plan to stop the dragons and see Skyrim free of the Empire."

"Companions are politically neutral," Kodlak warned. "The dragons will have to be your primary goal."

Lia raised an eyebrow at the man. "I've all but admitted to serving a foreign power but you would still make me a Companion?"

Kodlak's mouth twisted into a wolfish grin. "A whelp. One who has already angered a potential Shield-Sibling."

"Why?" Lia decided to be blunt.

"One, Farkas thinks you would make a good Companion. My brother is short on brains, but long on reading people's hearts," Vilkas answered.

"And two, I would prefer to keep a tab on you," Kodlak admitted. "That you have come to us of your own accord is promising. Three, I have dreamed of you: you are instrumental to the Companions' future."

_This problem they're having,_ Lia intuitively realised. The problem that made Vilkas short-tempered. The wolf iconography of their armour. The reference to 'the blood'.

"You're werewolves," she breathed. "And you want to be free of it."

Vilkas regarded her, jaw slowly dropping, as Kodlak's eyes narrowed. "Yes. Somehow you will be part of the solution of freeing us."

"So I have dragons, a civil war and werewolves to sort out now. Shouldn't this be Ralof Dragonborn's problem? Oh, I'll be trying to send him your way too." Lia was probably being too sarcastic, but she felt she was due some after today's revelations.

"We don't want him." Vilkas' tone was abrupt. "He is too much a Stormcloak."

"Amongst other things," Kodlak murmured. Lia would need to ask him about that later.

"I… can work with that," she agreed.

Kodlak smiled slightly. "Then welcome to Jorrvaskr. Vilkas, take her out to the yard and see what she's made of."

Judging by the sullen gleam in the werewolf's eye as he rose, he was going to drive her hard. Lia's fingers curled instinctively; she couldn't wait to put her skill to the test against a real opponent.

And something deep inside, deeper than blood and bone, welcomed her home.


End file.
